Stage 1 Identify Desired Results

Establish Goals: (G)
Common Core State Standards
Content Area: Reading
Grade Level: Grade 9-10
Domain: Literature
Standard: Key Ideas and Details
Cluster: RL.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Standard: Craft and Structure
Cluster: RL.9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone

What understandings are desired?

Students will understand that: (U)
• theme emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details in texts.
• words and phrases have many figurative and connotative meanings throughout a text.
• the choice of words and phrases impact meaning and tone.

What essential questions will be considered?

Essential Questions: (Q)
• How is theme determined in a text?
• Why do people interpret the same words and phrases in different ways?
• How does language impact the world around us?

What key knowledge and skills will students acquire as a result of this unit?


Students will know: (K)
Students will be able to: (S)
• Literacy devices: theme, point of view, mood, tone, metaphor, simile, symbols, etc.
• Key factual information: book burning, Nazi laws, various Holocaust facts.
• Characters: Book Thief
• describe various themes throughout texts.
• evaluate various meanings of words and phrases throughout a text.
• use figurative language correctly.
• analyze specific details that refine and shape theme throughout texts.
• consider the impact of their words on the world around them.
• recognize the impact of their word choices (and the choices of others).

2004 ASCD and Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe